Apple agrees to pay over $15 billion to Ireland in back taxes

According to a top Irish official, Apple has agreed to pay Ireland around $15.4 billion in back taxes.

“We have now reached agreement with Apple in relation to the principles and operation of the escrow fund,” Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told reporters before a meeting with European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, per Reuters.

"We expect the money will begin to be transmitted into the account from Apple across the first quarter of next year."

Ireland was formally referred to the European Court of Justice after it failed to implement a 2016 order that required the island nation to collect the same amount in unpaid taxes.Over a year ago, as Ars reported, the EU’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, said that a two-year investigation into so-called sweetheart tax deals in 1991 and 2007 had found Apple guilty of receiving illegal state aid from the Emerald Isle. The deal had allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of one percent on its European profits in 2003, down to as low as 0.005 percent in certain years, according to Vestager.

Apple has denied any wrongdoing and has also said that it received no “special deal.”

“We have a dedicated team working diligently and expeditiously with Ireland on the process the European Commission has mandated,” Apple said in a Monday statement, according to UPI. “We remain confident the General Court of the EU will overturn the Commission’s decision once it has reviewed all the evidence.”